Castries

After a bit of a skittery night at anchor in Rodney Bay, the new anchor was performing well but the wind was gusty and changeable so it was overall a peaceful night with the occasional noisy ten minutes. We had already decided to move a few miles down the coast to the capital of St Lucia, Castries. Our neighbours who had shown some annoyance the day before at our proximity turned out to have 50 metres of chain out as their engine wasn't working. That's a ratio of 10:1 a little OTT in our opinion. I think that they had scoped out extra chain when the wind was stronger and just left it all out. In the two miles of open water in Rodney Bay there were probably 50 boats at anchor. Everyone had plenty of swinging room however, It was true that due to the wind shifts we had fetched up fairly close, but that was understandable once we figured out why she had the swinging circle of a supertanker, bloody French!

The weather was decidedly changeable and one of our main worries was how crowded the small inner harbour of Castries would be, we needn't have worried as it turned out. We had an alternative plan of action in any case. That was to anchor outside the harbour, the Caribean is full of snug anchorages.

We got a good view of Pigeon Island as we left the bay then we headed south past the lush landscape of the north coast, hidden bays and houses in spectacular positions afforded constant interest.

About the only navigational hazard was the rock known as the " barrel of beef ". Fairly easy to avoid really, as was the small cruise liner coming down the narrow channel from Castries.

We travelled along the marked channel after contacting port control and anchored right at the head of the harbour past a giant cruise liner that was docked at the outer quay.

By this time the dark clouds had begun to gather and a bit of rain could be felt.

We dropped anchor and were surprised to find ourselves the only boat at anchor in Castries.

We tidied up and went ashore to find somewhere to eat, it didn't take long to find a little restaurant called Chef Robbys. We had a nice lunch and suitably fortified we set off to explore the town.

Castries is in St Lucian terms, the big city. It certainly feels that way even though in real terms it's a small town, it is busy, noisy, dirty in parts and full of people everywhere. Most selling something from small wooden shacks, some begging, some obviously smoking marijuana, every other shack seemed to be a rum shop or bar, some only a few metres square. We walked into the market and found it was a warren of tiny stalls and colour. Please don't ask me to explain the edifice in the photo below, I have no idea!

Outside the covered section among the fruit and vegetables, the heavens once more were threatening to open. Compared to Rodney Bay this felt a little more like the real Caribean, not really geared towards tourism the people were however still very friendly and welcoming, at one point a large lady ran out of the market to say our friends were looking for us, quite concerned that we had become separated but just at that moment we spotted Dave, she was quite relieved. Dave had been distracted buying some local herbs.

We made our way along the harbour front until the heat and humidity proved too much and we headed back towards the dinghy and Hocus Pocus, recce over we determined to explore further tomorrow.

We were still the only boat at anchor, quite amazing. Dave bumped into the woman from the market who had been so concerned when we became separated, she asked if Dave was off a boat ( the large cruise liner had just left ) yes he said, that one, and pointed out Hocus Pocus " Ah ", she said " Mafia!" 

I am sure Dave reassured her we weren't drug runners......